


equinox

by pinkwinwin



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Slight Hurt/Comfort, Slight Mental Health Issues, Summer Romance, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:35:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23137036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkwinwin/pseuds/pinkwinwin
Summary: (and oh, God— Minghao has never been good at love.)and then Junhui turns to him and smiles, the sun a perfect halo around his head.(— but maybe Minghao could try.)
Relationships: Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Comments: 11
Kudos: 104
Collections: ENFANT D'ÉTÉ - ROUND 1





	equinox

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to the mods of this fest, to J for a very last minute beta and reassurance, and to you for reading! Enjoy <3

Minghao knows he is not easy to love.

He is sharp edges and skeptical looks over a shoulder. He is teeth and the bitter taste in your mouth after a particularly long cry. There are dark marks where people have held him too close, like their fingerprints were caked in soot and their hearts made of black ice. Time has worn away these edges, just enough so they don’t present themselves at every opportunity. Still, Minghao cannot help but feel as if there should be something more to life.

But Junhui.

Junhui is soft corners and laughing into your hand, he is the sun and all its warmth on a June afternoon, born into the month of his namesake. He is spun honey, the sugar almost sickly sweet when it sticks to your lips. He is the petal of a cherry blossom, floating in with the breeze. He is an uncaged bird, free to fly.

Minghao wonders what took Junhui so long to get here, fingers weaving through soft hair as amber light coats the two of them. The sun closest to the Earth at this time of day, warming their skin.

Junhui, golden boy, sighs below his touch.

☼

They meet in a warm August afternoon when the sun is low in the sky like it could heat the asphalt below it just by its own proximity. Minghao is seventeen and still not yet understanding of the world around him, but he knows enough to shove a fistful of change into his jean pocket and stomp into his worn-down sneakers before heading out the door.

He swears under his breath as he can feel the sweat already start to accumulate onto the back of his neck, but the street is mostly deserted and the next convenience store isn’t for a few more blocks still. His feet move fast but his mind is faster, already planning on ways to stay away from the confinement of home for as long as he can when it happens.

Like the whirlwind that is Junhui, he comes crashing into Minghao’s life.

“ _Watch it,_ ” Minghao says, rubbing his shoulder from where the rider clipped him. His eyes are scrunched up in pain, but he forgets all about it when he sees the face beaming up at him from the pavement.

“Sorry!” the boy says, cheerful and a little sheepish. There’s a scrape on his knee that’s bleeding and his t-shirt is smudged with dirt but he sits back on his hands, with the notion that he’s happy just to be alive.

Minghao will come to find that to be terribly true of Junhui. Happiness leaks out of him like water.

And a summer of Junhui turns to a year of Junhui turns to a lifetime of Junhui and Minghao can feel it in his bones. Like sunlight from the inside, like touching a burning ember and not pulling your hand away. Minghao was always ice and stone, but Junhui brings a fire to him with every touch, every smile, every bout of laughter.

☼

College brings change, brings Junhui and Minghao together as roommates. It brings shifting world perspectives and Junhui finding comfort in the arms of others. It was clear to Minghao that they both preferred the company of men, but Minghao can't get the thought out of his head of a handsome stranger between Junhui's legs, making him whisper words in Mandarin that Minghao only imagined in his dreams

.

And Minghao tries too, has a stint with a beautiful man in his Philosophy class named Seokmin who kisses him like he's made of glass and has a megawatt smile. He spends nearly two years with Mingyu, who seems to read him like a book save for the last page because that will always be Junhui.

"I don't think you love me," Mingyu says to him one day, sun setting and painting the restaurant orange and pink. It dances across his cheekbones, plays in the corner of his lips where they quip up in a melancholy smile.

"Of course I do," Minghao replies, because he does. He loves Mingyu like a pair of warm arms, like the scent of clean laundry and the comfort of your favorite homemade meal.

"You don't love me like _that,_ " Mingyu says, turning his head to look at him. His eyes dance with something knowing. "You don't love me like you'll always love Junhui."

And it's true, Minghao supposes, but it still hits him like a gut punch. He has to stop himself from doubling over and instead he reaches out with both hands and grabs Mingyu's hand, brings it to his lips and kisses it while squeezing his eyes shut. Tries to press an apology into the skin there.

☼

The week before graduation, Junhui and Minghao take a walk around their neighborhood. It's a modest college town, more bicycles thrown across lawns and scratched-up cars in the driveway than any standard suburb would find socially acceptable. Minghao finds himself staring at Junhui's broad back as he walks a little ahead, white shirt tinting golden in the fading light.

They talk aimlessly about everything and nothing at all, voices blending together to make something nearly incoherent. At least that's how Minghao sees it, but it may be because he's too focused on drinking in the man before him like he'll disappear if he doesn't.

It occurs to Minghao then that love comes in many forms, and he thinks he loves Junhui in almost all of them. He is his best friend, his other half, the one he wants to lean in and sink his teeth into when the summer heat melts into the mattress in languid lovemaking.

(and oh, _God—_ Minghao has never been good at love.)

and then Junhui turns to him and smiles, the sun a perfect halo around his head.

(— but maybe Minghao could try.)

☼

It’s at a noisy bar when Junhui kisses him for the first time— _truly_ kisses him. Completely sober and without the childish hesitance that comes with adolescence. He leans in, elbows on the cherry wood bar, and kisses Minghao as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Soft lips, parted just so, a sigh of relief escaping Junhui as he pulls away.

“Hi,” Junhui whispers, eyes still half-lidded and cupping Minghao’s cheek. Not like he was glass or stone or ice, but like he was holding the home he was always searching for right between his palms. The fading sunset rays filtering in through the window and bathing them both in gold.

For the first time, Minghao feels the warmth of the sun from the inside out.

☼

It takes them two months to sleep together. Minghao pressing his thumbs hot into Junhui’s hipbones as they shake beneath him. It’s pleasure radiating off of Junhui, eagerness that leaks out of his pores like it’s contagious. And perhaps it is, because Minghao wants nothing more than to dive into the heat that is Junhui, to fit together perfectly as if they were carved specifically for each other.

And Minghao knows that heat comes from the sun, but it also comes from _Junhui,_ and the equinox may come only twice a year but it’s also right here beneath his palms, where the curve of Junhui’s hips meet in the middle and drives him so mad he thinks he could sink his teeth in. Instead he grazes the skin, listens to the sunshine laughter leak out of Junhui’s mouth as he tilts his head back in hazy pleasure.

Fist in Minghao’s hair, holding him to the center of the sun.

☼

Junhui is everything that is summer, Minghao knows this.

Junhui is soft corners and laughing into your hand, he is the sun and all its warmth on a June afternoon, born into the month of his namesake. Minghao knows this, because he finds himself chanting Junhui’s name like a mantra when his fingers curl up just enough inside of him to have him seeing stars.

He is spun honey, the sugar almost sickly sweet when it sticks to your lips. Minghao knows this, because of the endless kisses from the golden boy. After the haze of sex, in the early morning hours, in the moments in between just because.

He is the petal of a cherry blossom, floating in with the breeze. Minghao knows this, because he sees the way Junhui moves through life. He sees the way that nothing can hold him down, he sees him dance. It never ceases to amaze him.

He is an uncaged bird, free to fly. Minghao knows this— right up until he doesn’t.

Because sometimes Junhui shakes, sometimes his words seem watery as they sit in his throat with the threat of tears coloring the corners of his eyes. Sometimes Junhui can do nothing else but crawl into bed, or never get out at all, the sun hiding behind a curtain of clouds. That is when Minghao sheds his edges until he is smooth as silk, holding the man between his arms and reminding him that he is home. He will always be home with him, and Minghao will shout it into the sky if that’s what Junhui wanted.

Minghao knows this, and he waits for the better days when the golden boy shines again.

☼

Minghao knows he is much easier to love.

Not because Junhui forced him to change, no— sometimes life is about wanting to be the best version of yourself because you deserve it. And sometimes the person you’re with deserves it too, Minghao thinks, as he threads his fingers through Junhui’s hair. Like touching the sun with no risk of burning, like holding the fleeting summer months in your grasp and knowing they’ll never leave. Not for you, and for that Minghao cannot help but be thankful.

And just before his thoughts carry Minghao into another world, Junhui, golden boy, sighs below his touch. The sun is closest to the Earth at this time of day, the sun is nestled safely right between his palms.

Minghao wonders what took Junhui so long to get here.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!   
>  [fic twit](twitter.com/pinkwinwin) | [main twit](twitter.com/truantseeker) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/pinkwinwin)


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